The E-Sports Industry Is Growing — Now Web Infrastructure Needs to Keep Up

Like traditional sports, e-sports can be costly. A prime component of e-sports infrastructure is video streaming, which enables competition. Viewers are able to share the videos and streaming links to millions, requiring companies to build their own solutions or work with solid tech companies to deal with heavy bandwidth. Services like highlights, instant replays, live streaming, and anti-cheating detection measures are some of the instant services that need to be available for viewers and gamers.

In order for the e-sport infrastructure to thrive, software developers need to find a way to scale in a way that works effectively on a cloud mixed platform, as well as on dedicated servers. Once dedicated platforms achieve the ability to scale with automation features typically found on scale cloud platforms, scaling the e-sports platform to meet high-performance criteria will be much easier.

A report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the sports industry will inevitably face problems due to the drastic decline in viewership. The entire industry is running on a distribution model that is stuck in the past. What’s worse is that some of the most influential companies in the industry are slow to implement innovative technology measures.

New revenue models are truly reinventing the way users engage with content online. Services like Twitch provide a platform for streaming thousands of games online daily. Some of the most popular games on this service, namely “League of Legends” and “Dota 2,” generate close to 70 million views each month. Given the high number of viewers these services experience, there is no denying the importance of game streaming in today’s culture — and web infrastructure needs to be able to keep up with these changes.

How to Select the Right Web Infrastructure Partners

To be able to handle high volumes of traffic during peak seasons, it’s crucial to have the ability to deal with low-latency applications and high bandwidth simultaneously without disruption. A high-performance network available around the globe is extremely important, and it’s one of the driving factors of player satisfaction.

It’s also important to automate and provide scalable capacity on both cloud and non-cloud platforms at a competitive price. The availability of equipment in a global data center will provide low bandwidth cost combined with a lower latency to create a better user experience.

It’s also likely that game developers in the future will embrace artificial intelligence and machine learning to form a better understanding of how players interact with characters in their games. These tools will ensure a more customized gaming experience for players who could have packages tailored to their particular interests.

The Success of E-Sports

The success of online gaming is directly related to the performance, price, and availability of the infrastructures they are offered on. If games are slow to load or glitch often, fans will start leaving in droves.

The infrastructure needs to be top-notch in order for companies to maximize their return. Working with a partner that can provide a sufficient balance between price and performance will make a big difference for the players and publishers alike.

Also, it’s not just gamers and sports enthusiasts who realize that e-sports are the next big thing. Vision Esports, a holding company co-founded by NBA star Rick Fox that invests in up-and-coming brands in the e-sports industry, has received backing from sports stars such as Kevin Durant and Odell Beckham Jr., sports teams like the St. Louis Cardinals, and even other big agencies like Shamrock Holdings — the Disney family’s personal investment company.

For this industry to continue to grow, it is important for infrastructure development to meet the needs of its users. A reliable platform is crucial to ensure the widespread growth of e-sports is fully supported for years to come.